Writing

Tech Culture

Don't treat your website like a commodity

The traditional approach to product development involves coming up with new idea and then driving as many people towards that product as possible, in the hope that some of them will want it. As such we adopt the language of marketing, and talk about marketing funnels and conversion rates. If our marketing department has done a good job they will have created a campaign that not only generates traffic, but creates a previously unrecognised need. Tired? Need a break? Why not have a KitKat?

Personal

Why I Can't Afford Cheap

I remember reading a story once about an octogenarian discussing her most prized possessions with a researcher. She shows the researcher an iron that's been going for over 40 years and explains how she had to scrimp and save to buy the product and how it ended up out living even her husband. Quizzed on why she spent so much money on the iron she said "I'm too poor to buy cheap!" Too poor to buy cheap. That simple phase really resonated with me and has stuck with me ever since. Cheap is quick. Cheap is dirty. Cheap is disposable. Cheap breaks. Cheap costs money. It costs money to fix, it costs money to replace. Cheap seems like a good idea at the time but cheap fails when you most need it. Cheap is flimsy and unsatisfying. Cheap is inefficient. Cheap gets in your way. Cheap costs you time and it costs you customers. Cheap always cost you more in the end. That's why I can't afford to buy cheap. Can you?

Tech Culture

Are Social Media Consultants Harming Social Media?

The logic goes like this. The traditional marketing funnel is broken. You can't just throw a bunch of money at an advertising campaign and have that turn into customers. At least not to the levels you could when there were just three channels or four channels of communication. The web and social media has changed all that. So rather than waiting for customers to come to you, you have to go to them and engage with them in the same way they engage with each other. So that means blogs, that means Twitter streams and than means Facebook applications. Basically that means moving your marketing messages into the social media space . Most companies have little idea how the web works, let alone how people use it, so in order to reach this new generation of consumer, they hire the services of a Social Media Consultant.

Design Practice

Usability as a Marketing Tool

Despite being 2009, one of the biggest complaints I hear from people when describing their online activities is how difficult websites are to use. People get amazingly frustrated when they're trying to do something seemingly simple and the website continuously gets in the way. It's almost as though the people designing or commissioning the website haven't used it themselves. For most consumers this idea seems incredible, but sadly it's largely still the case.

Tech Culture

How your online business can survive a global recession

Traditional business is simple. You create a product or service you think customers will want, and then spend money to drive people towards that product or service. If you're lucky, some of those people will want to user your product or service and you'll make money. This can be through direct charges or, in the case of content creation, selling this attention on to other companies.

Design Practice

Silverback, One Month On

"Silverback":http://silverbackapp.com/ launched just over a month ago and what a roller coaster month that was. We launched towards the end of July and within the first couple of days the app had been downloaded 7,000 times. Thirty days on and well over 20,000 people have grabbed themselves a copy. Crikey! For the first couple of weeks the whole company was hooked on the Twitter feedback. I had a Summize window permanently open and kept refreshing the search every few minutes. Messages were coming thick and fast and I was pretty bowled over by the feedback. The messages were so unbelievably positive I actually started to worry. After all it was just a little usability testing app and wasn't going to cure hunger and bring about world peace. Here is just a small selection of the comments we received...